The Northern Lights is an award-winning show choir from North High which has established a regional reputation for dance, voice and acting. Its spring show is written and produced by students and is a great showcase for their talents onstage and behind the scenes. (submitted photos)

Every May, North High’s Northern Lights Show Choir commemorates the end of its action-packed competition circuit with its annual springtime Extravaganza Show — an original musical theater performance that within a one-month span was written, directed costumed, cast, advertised, choreographed, acted and sung by the choristers themselves.

Local talent fuels ensemble comedy
There seems to be plenty of stage space for young thespians, from classroom skits to high-school plays and summer camps and programs.
What you don’t often find is a showcase for older actors -- the ones who have enough life experience to portray any character they’re playing to a “T” and are confident enough to push the portrayals to their comedic utmost.

If you have ever wanted to write, direct or star in your own stage play, now is your chance. The St. Anthony Community Theater will be hosting its first ever PlayFest, where they are inviting teams of two to five people to write and stage a one-act play within 48 hours.
There will be rules each team must follow when writing the play, which will be given to the teams at an organizational meeting, held on Thursday, Jan. 30 at the St. Anthony Village High School auditorium at 7 p.m. Teams will then have 48 hours to write short, one-act plays, which they will perform on stage, starting at 7 p.m.

In “Whistle Down the Wind,” three children (Mason Wold, Riley Ebner and Ellie Peterson) find a man (Andy Peterson) in their barn and mistake him for a Messiah. (photos by Heather Edwards/Review)

For most people, the name Andrew Lloyd Webber is associated with Broadway hits such as “Phantom of the Opera” and “Cats“. However, among Webber ‘s plays is a lesser -known, beautifully haunting musical called “Whistle Down the Wind,” and St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in North St. Paul is currently presenting it.

North High Theatre, showcasing characters Sky Masterson and Sarah Brown, rehearse Guys and Dolls, running two weekends through Nov. 2. Oct. 26 and Nov. 2 at 2 p.m. were planned as Military Appreciation Matinees. In addition, clothing donations were to be collected prior to each performance on behalf of the DAV.

Jeffrey Furchner practices his gutteral noises and drunken, wild stagger for his role as a zombie in the Historic Mounds Theatre’s production of “Night of the Living Dead.” (Patrick Larkin/Review)

The original zombie, back to undead

If you can’t handle an onslaught of zombies -- a zombie from the left, a zombie from the right, a zombie from behind and a zombie head on -- you may want to stay at home, rather than go to the Historic Mounds Theatre’s production of “Night of the Living Dead” on Halloween weekend.
Scares, gore and a sense of claustrophobia are what Derek Dirlam and Sal Niteo are hoping will pull you into their immersive, live production of the classic 1968 zombie horror flick.